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US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

arstechnica.com

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Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#31

Post by matwood »

swiftcoder wrote: post #25

> The Defense Innovation Unit notice called for drones capable of carrying many different sensor and weapons payloads up to 2,800 pounds and flying with a combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles—or 8,000 nautical miles on a one-way strike mission—while executing the same missions that the MQ-9A Reaper drone currently performs for the US military I feel like they might be taking the wrong lesson from this. The…

Yeah, it's about requirements. The Ukraine war has shown that fast-iterating MVPs are better in many battlefield situations. The saying that militaries end up preparing for the prior war instead of the next, comes to mind.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#33

Post by bluegatty »

newaccount670 wrote: post #27
exabrial wrote: post #3

The defense industry has spent the last 40+ years grooming the DoD into thinking it costs $30mil/unit to produce missiles and drones. They should have rejected any of the bids, but being fueled by massively excessive taxes in the USA, they don't have to answer to any sort of efficiency or profitability. These things should cost less than a Toyota Camry.

If you think you can produce them for cheaper, you could make yourself a lot of money and save taxpayers a lot of money by starting your own company.

This statement implies a misrepresentation of how these kinds of supply chains work.

These are captured markets, there is no competition. The bar is set high, or specifically, so that small players cannot compete, and this is done by extensiive relationship management at all levels, and heavy marketing.

It takes a situation like Ukraine to 'prove' to everyone that 'cheap things can work well'.

Even in the face of glaring evidence form Ukraine the system is slow to react.

Shaheds are used for years and the US just let their gear sit out in the open in the Gulf.

You could provide 'irrefutable evidence' to a political system of some fact, it's not hugely helpful.

The system does not change until the power dynamics do - aka Iran destroyed gazillions in US gear and some senior level people are 'demanding answers'.

Defence contracts are an 'inside game' it's extremely political.

Only when people are in a rush do they start to look at outside agencies to find the best gear for the problem they need to solve 'right now'.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#34

Post by bad_haircut72 »

hvb2 wrote: post #5
freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

Why would those fixes not be batched up? So fix 20% of those and do one round of testing?

The obvious answer is that the more bugs you batch up, the higher the chances the next build fails - this is why CI became a thing, small iterative changes are safer and lead to greater throughput

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#35

Post by cm2012 »

freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

This is why Ukraine is making equivalent tech now for 1/10th the price. It's great to see.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#36

Post by varispeed »

freedomben wrote: post #2

I worked on the control systems for Predators and Reapers back in the mid and late 00s, and the inefficiencies around process were enormous. Safety is extremely important, so you expect some slowness as a result, but it got pretty extreme. I remember one time having to do 6 weeks of testing around a one-line code change because a "helpful" dev fixed a small bug that had no practical impact. Yet because it changed the…

If safety is extremely important, why there were bugs in the first place? Surely these should have been caught before code would get into main, no?

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#37

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

Makes sense, drone technology has come an insane distance since these were developed.

Probably the biggest learning from the Ukraine war alone is the effectiveness of cheap drones. It was suspected for years but hadn't been put to the test yet.

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#38

Post by delecti »

mrtksn wrote: post #28

I’m no military expert by any means but US appears to be obsessed with destroying some super important target to win, like they did with killing Iran leaders only to find out that new leader replace the perished. The same with the other stuff, they have super important radar and super important ships that need to be defended and a failure creates irreplaceable loses. Iran on the other hand, just like with their super…

The US in general, and this administration in particular, has bought into US exceptionalism and action movie tropes. Just gotta blow up the death star with the leader on board and then the war is over. In reality there's a chain of command and line of succession, and military equipment all around the country.

If they had been smart, they would have been learning from Ukraine, because we've found ourselves in basically the same position as Russia is with Ukraine, but with no appetite to puts boots on the ground (not that we should, but it's the only way to "win").

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#39

Post by [deleted] »

herry6 wrote: post #24
ck2 wrote: post #4

there's a better way for 100% savings just completely exit like Afghanistan and remember all this military hardware eventually ends up in the hands of police departments domestically, next decade is going to be wild $21 TRILLION spent on militarization 2001-2021 * https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz... imagine how much by 2031, at least double ps. they are still executing fishermen without tr…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

#40

Post by ck2 »

pixl97 wrote: post #23
ck2 wrote: post #4

there's a better way for 100% savings just completely exit like Afghanistan and remember all this military hardware eventually ends up in the hands of police departments domestically, next decade is going to be wild $21 TRILLION spent on militarization 2001-2021 * https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz... imagine how much by 2031, at least double ps. they are still executing fishermen without tr…

>just completely exit like Afghanistan We can't just completely exit Iran without a time machine. Dufus Donny attempting to escape his Epstein folly by kicking the hornet's nest and now Iran holds the gulf hostage for as long as they want.

guess what, Iran will hold the gulf hostage regardless if US is there or not

exactly like the nightmare Afghanistan is for women there now left to the Taliban

regardless if US was there or not it would have happened

world is an absolutely horrible place filled with monsters

you can't say all these countries should be saved by US and then end USAID to let a million people die with food and medication already paid for left rotting in warehouses

btw we are also starving all the people in Cuba to death with an illegal blockcade since the start of the year, so why is Cuba our responsibility too?

at some point WE become worse monsters, we're at that point

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